Schools: Arts

Debate between Baroness Wall of New Barnet and Lord Hill of Oareford

Monday 19th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I agree with the noble Countess. These subjects have a range of benefits for all kinds of children.

[Baroness Wall of New Barnet]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that what ought to be included in the discussion around the arts, drama and dance is how these subjects will lead to employment in the way in which the qualifications are designed and delivered? The creative and cultural sector skills councils are all one now and it would be advisable to talk to Creative Skillset about what skill sets employers are looking for.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I agree with the noble Baroness that it is important to talk to employers and a range of interested parties that can help contribute to our thinking. It is worth making the point that the original thinking behind the EBacc was driven by the relatively small number of children who had that mix of EBacc subjects, which experience seems to suggest are most likely to lead to those children being able to go to our top universities. When only 4% of children on free school meals were doing the EBacc subjects, it was pretty clear that the number of those children who were going to be able to go to our top universities would be constrained. The idea behind the EBacc is not to set about a narrowing of education but to try to tilt the balance back towards some more rigorous subjects. About 15 years ago, half of all children did the equivalent of the EBacc subjects; today it is about 22%. If we can tilt it back a bit more that way, I think that would be good.

Education: Engineering

Debate between Baroness Wall of New Barnet and Lord Hill of Oareford

Thursday 15th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Baroness about the importance of that, and I know that it is one of the issues that the university technical colleges are grappling with because they are keen to encourage that kind of take-up. The noble Baroness is right to remind us of that, and I hope that we will see the figures increasing.

[Baroness Wall of New Barnet]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, are crucial? The Government aim to involve more women in science, technology, engineering and manufacturing, yet the diploma encouraged more women to be involved in those subjects than had previously been the case. There is a lack of understanding among employers of why the Government felt the necessity to move away from that. The diploma is recognised and valued, and I urge the Minister—as did the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne—to rethink the position.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, there are two separate issues. So far as the diploma generally is concerned, the reason that the Government have taken their decision is that we do not want to favour a particular kind of qualification that then receives additional funding to support its take-up over other qualifications. We want qualifications to be driven by the interests of the children and the awarding organisations. I completely agree with the points made about the importance of making sure that employers are involved with the development of qualifications, and it is my hope and belief that employers will work with the awarding organisations on the replacement of the principal learning element of the engineering diploma, which is the core issue at stake here, and that we will have well regarded and rigorous qualifications that will encourage the take-up of engineering, other technical subjects and vocational qualifications. The route to having more people taking these subjects is to make sure that they are properly valued by employers and everyone else.

Schools: Funding Reform

Debate between Baroness Wall of New Barnet and Lord Hill of Oareford

Tuesday 19th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

The remarks made by the right reverend Prelate echo my almost daily plaint. I agree with him entirely. It is our hope that with the new scheme we will be able to deliver it faster, perhaps up to 12 months faster, which will obviously save money. I agree that these processes can seem extremely complex. If he has experience from the academy with which he is involved, I would be interested to talk about that because we are keen to learn and try to do it better.

[Baroness Wall of New Barnet]

My Lords, I want to highlight a couple of things in the Statement, but first I must say that I think it was quite a mean-spirited Statement in its very negative description of the approaches taken by the previous Government. Even in the paragraph on academies, there is no recognition of the success of the academies programme, which started under the previous Government and has carried on under this one. It is probably the most negative Statement that I have seen for quite some time in this House, and I just want to put on record the fact that I am very disappointed about that.

I have some questions about university technical colleges. Where do they fit into all this? What is their relationship to the academies? What is the funding for them? I am quite surprised that the Statement does not refer to them as the way forward. Noble Lords will know from the noble Lord, Lord Baker, that they are very much the future, as I know from my involvement with some of the FE colleges that are going in that direction. Where are the university technical colleges going to fit in terms of revenue and the whole process?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, I hope that noble Lords who have been subjected to me talking about academies would say that I have always been very quick to make clear the huge contribution that the previous Government made to academies. I have said from the beginning, although this might not always be an altogether welcome message for those on the Benches opposite, that I see my job as trying to build on what the previous Government did and what they intended to do in 2005. We are taking that forward; I am very clear about that. I am also very clear about Building Schools for the Future, having met a lot of the schools, children and heads who were involved with it. I absolutely share the previous Government’s intention to improve the building estate. I know what they were trying to do, and I understand why they did it, so I am sorry if the noble Baroness felt that the Statement was mean-spirited.

We did not mention funding for the UTCs in the Statement, but the noble Baroness will know that the Chancellor found some more money in the Budget to—I hope—double to 24 the number that we were aiming for in the lifetime of this Parliament. That is in place, and is not affected by anything that we have announced today. Given that these are new institutions, I guess that by definition the pot for dilapidation is not going to be relevant to them. As she will know from her conversations with FE colleges, there is a lot of support for them. We have had a large number of applications, which we are considering, and we will in due course make announcements on those which I will be very happy to share with her.

Education Bill

Debate between Baroness Wall of New Barnet and Lord Hill of Oareford

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Wall of New Barnet]

My Lords, this is also my maiden intervention in this Bill. I support the final comments that were made, for two reasons. First, I declare an interest: I work with and support EAL, a bespoke awarding body. Its view is that the extremes that are currently available are really quite worrying. Secondly, and importantly for it, if we do not have those opportunities to bring to a halt and remedy the situation, it does no good for those awarding bodies that try very hard to make sure that they work very well. For those reasons, I support those comments. Perhaps the Minister will think about whether there is something in between, but certainly something detrimental should happen if things are not working out well.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, on the core point of this amendment, we certainly want to create a system that encourages all schools to offer high quality qualifications and gives pupils and parents the clearest possible information. To achieve this, first, we are committed to giving everyone access to the underlying data on all the qualifications taken in schools, in both the independent and state sectors. We plan to publish all the information the department holds on schools in a single place in a way that is accessible to everyone. We have made some steps already in opening up information on qualifications and we intend to do more. This puts parents in a stronger position to judge whether a school is meeting their child’s needs.

However, qualifications reported in performance tables should first be accredited by Ofqual in order to secure standards. Ofqual’s scrutiny provides a safeguard that qualifications are rigorous and challenging. It is open to all the qualification-awarding organisations to present the qualifications that they offer for accreditation. The majority of qualifications taken in the independent sector and all qualifications taken in the state sector are accredited.

In recent years, school performance tables have shown schools’ performances based on a system of equivalencies, which have ascribed a points value to a wide range of qualifications, and presented information about schools’ performance based on those points. However, sometimes that approach serves to conceal more information than it reveals, and it treats very different qualifications as if they are the same. Both may be excellent, valuable qualifications in their own right but they are not necessarily the same.

We want to try to give parents detailed and specific information about qualifications and not lump it all together. It is also the case that the current system of equivalencies has created some perverse incentives for schools to offer courses that score highly in performance tables but are not necessarily in the best interests of the children concerned. That is why we have accepted Professor Wolf’s recommendation that we should replace the existing performance table measures based on equivalence points and try to introduce more sophisticated criteria for deciding which qualifications should count in performance tables in future.

My noble friend Lord Lucas is extremely experienced in slicing and dicing data and I would welcome the chance for him to come in and talk to officials about whether there are ways that we can benefit from his experience and put it to the most effective use.

My noble friend Lord Lingfield raised the possibility of Ofqual taking a more nuanced approach, with a range of sanctions rather than the current, as he described it, rap over the knuckle or the nuclear option, and that perhaps it would be sensible to have something more graduated, maybe with some kind of fine. It is clear from the comments that have been made that the Government ought to think about that and reflect on it, to see whether it could be made to work in a sensible way, and to give Ofqual this kind of power as it develops. I am very happy to take those suggestions away and see whether that is something we can do and come back to at a later date.

With that and with the earlier points on the performance, I hope my noble friend feels able to withdraw her amendment.

Education: Vocational Subjects

Debate between Baroness Wall of New Barnet and Lord Hill of Oareford

Thursday 12th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, I very much agree with the noble Earl about the importance of charities. One announcement made today in the broader context of tackling the NEET problem—no one has found a better way of saying it than NEET, because otherwise it takes too long—is a new £10 million-a-year fund to be set up, which I hope will be taken up by charities and the voluntary sector, to come up with solutions to help those children, such as I was lucky enough to see recently, to re-engage, undertaken by Fairbridge, which does a fantastic job in helping to re-engage those children. I very much agree with the noble Earl about the role of charities.

If I have more detail on the noble Earl’s second point about mentoring, I will come back to him. I will follow that up; but he and I may also have a chance to discuss that further outside the House.

[Baroness Wall of New Barnet]

I, too, welcome the report, and may be keener on it than others. I chaired a seminar yesterday in this House with 25 employers, including British Airways and some other big employers, but also some small ones. We started off by talking about schools and what happens in the curriculum. Every one of those employers had the same concern which we have all heard over and again about the lack of career guidance in schools, particularly about apprenticeships. Today, there is still a void in how that is raised with young people, where the push is always for the academic and for those who do not go that way, who go for apprenticeships, to be considered failures. How can we make a serious effort? The previous Government tried to get across the equal value of both those aspects of education.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, I would be very happy, if the noble Baroness has particular suggestions, to discuss them with her, because I agree that we need to do that. One of the new duties that we will place on schools in the Education Bill, in which I am sure that she will take a particular interest when it comes to our House—all too soon—is to give schools a duty to ensure that careers advice is independent and impartial. That is in part driven by some of the concerns of the noble Baroness: to try to ensure that a child is not, in one way or another, shoehorned into the wrong choice—either into the vocational route when that is not right for them, or into an academic route when that is not right for them. I recognise the problem that the noble Baroness describes and would be keen to have a discussion about her experience of practical ways in which we might ensure that we get that balance right.

Further Education: 16 to 19 Year-olds

Debate between Baroness Wall of New Barnet and Lord Hill of Oareford

Wednesday 30th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

From the whole range of conversations that I have had with principals and with Members in another place from all parties who have brought them in to see me, particularly from rural areas, I am very aware that there are particularly acute transport provision issues, as my noble friend says. One of the points of the new discretionary fund, unlike the current one, is that schools and colleges will be able to make provision for transport. Local authorities have a statutory duty under the Education Act 1996 to set out what provision they are making for post-16 transport. However, I agree with my noble friend that that needs to be kept under review. We need to see what local authorities are doing and how they are discharging their duty and to bear in mind the importance of transport going forward.

[Baroness Wall of New Barnet]

Does the Minister agree that, in addition to the issues that have been raised by the noble Lord, Lord Willis, one of the key issues is having teachers who understand what trades and skills are required for apprenticeships? Most employers who are very keen on apprenticeships have this dilemma, as teachers do not understand and do not take young people through this route. We have a lot of information to give them.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I very much agree with the point that lies behind the noble Baroness’s question. There are two connected issues. One is to do with trying to make sure that children and young people are given impartial and independent careers advice. I know that there are concerns that schools not only might not have teachers who have an understanding of apprenticeships and the benefit of apprenticeships but might have an interest in advising the child in a way that is in the school’s interests financially, perhaps persuading them to stay on rather than saying that they would better placed in an apprenticeship. I accept the force of what she says. I know how much work the last Government did to encourage and promote the uptake of apprenticeships, which is very much a goal that we share.